Rad Alert

What's radical about the Radical Performance Fest? Jo Kreiter, for one. She likes to mount dances where dances don't usually go -- perpendicular to poles, or dangling from inner-city fire escapes or the Golden Gate Bridge, which builds a whole lot of upper-body strength and necessitates harnesses and ropes as part of the costume design. The fourth annual fest is a benefit for the S.F. Street Theater Festival, the weekend performance marathon held in the Tenderloin in June. The Rad Fest spotlights Kreiter, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and performance artist and Bearded Lady proprietor Harriet Dodge, whose solo show Muddy Little River sold out so many times that some would-be viewers have despaired of ever seeing her live. Sister Spit contribute politically charged spoken word, trapeze duo the Turnbuckles add aerial work, and Charming Hostess, whose members have moonlighted in late band-cum-performance spectacle Idiot Flesh, wrap up a little bit of the world in a pop-music package. When they aren't ducking the flying bodies and the rhetoric, guests can take a gander at the video footage of street fairs past, marvel at Wise Fool Puppet Intervention's giant creations, and admire the paintings and drawings by Eric Drooker, a sometime New Yorker cover artist and illustrator of Allen Ginsberg's last poetry book. The show begins at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Somar Theater, 934 Brannan (at Eighth Street), S.F. Admission is $7-15; call 339-7801. (